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Internet censorship plan gets the green light

Asher Moses

The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.

But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.

The blacklist, featuring material such as child sex abuse, sexual violence and instructions on crime, would be compiled using a public complaints mechanism, Government censors and URLs provided by international agencies.

Senator Conroy also released results from a pilot trial of ISP-level internet filters, conducted by Enex Testlab, which he said found that blocking banned material "can be done with 100 per cent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed".

"Most Australians acknowledge that there is some internet material which is not acceptable in any civilised society," he said.

"It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material."

He said about 15 western countries had encouraged or enforced internet filtering, and there was no reason why Australians should not have similar protection.

It is not clear how - or if - the filters will distinguish between illegal RC material and that which is perfectly legal to view.

An earlier version of the Government's top-secret list of banned sites was leaked on to the web in March, revealing the scope of the filtering could extend significantly beyond child porn.

About half of the sites on the list were not related to child porn and included a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

"Given the pilot's modest goals, it was designed from the beginning to pass," said EFA spokesman Colin Jacobs.

"Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important - exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place?"

Similarly, Senator Ludlam said: "Nobody said that filtering from a static list of URLs was going to slow things down too much unless the list gets huge, so I don't think they've already proven anything that we don't already know."

The pilot trial report also noted that motivated people could circumvent any internet filters with ease, which Senator Ludlam and Jacobs said called the effectiveness of the proposal into question.

Ludlam said proving a technical case was not the same as proving the wisdom of going down the internet censorship track in the first place, which he said had always been two separate discussions.

"While the Government says that they will be relying on an evidence-based policy, we still haven't seen evidence that this is going to play any meaningful role in preventing children from accessing harmful material online," Senator Ludlam said.

Jacobs said: "Successful technology isn't necessarily successful policy. We're still yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help and why it is worth spending so much taxpayer money on."

Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, said he would be meeting with his members tonight to discuss the report before formulating a response.

Senator Conroy said the Government would immediately undertake public consultations, starting today with the release of a discussion paper on additional measures to improve the accountability and transparency of processes that lead to sites being placed on the blacklist.

Some of the options raised include appeal mechanisms, notification to website owners of RC content and the review by an independent expert.

458 comments

This sux!! Are we not supposed to live in a country where the people vote on what they want, freedom of speech and information. And now the government "thinks" its in our "best" interest to censor the internet! What next? Telling us which brand of car is safer and there for all others will be unavailable?!?

So much for democracy!

Commenter

jas

Location

Sydney

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 3:56PM

What an international embarrassment - it's a bit like the All White Australia policy really. Does censorship make us proud to be Australian? What a sad day.

Commenter

tca

Location

Sydney

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 3:59PM

This will do real damage to Labor. Lots of semi committed Gen Ys will vote based on this. And Michin (libral) has said he would block it. Interesting to see how many votes come out 1. Green, 2. Liberal. We have Getup campaining against Labor! (Google Censordyne).

It is not just the bad policy, but also the dishonest way that it has been presented and debated. Conroy is a fool. How did we get such a minister? It gives Labor a bad smell.

It is certainly important that no party controls both the house and the senat.

Commenter

T.

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 3:59PM

This would be a good issue to take to the election, Mr Abbott

Commenter

Andrew

Location

Canberra

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:01PM

Can't this be circumvented by use of a VPN client? or are they going to be blocked too!?

Commenter

Mike

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:03PM

Omg they can't be serious... this is going to cost labour the next election....

Commenter

Bees

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:03PM

Of course the lists will be secret - to avoid undesirables getting hold of them - and the compilation of them will probably be kept secret as well. What's to stop some future government from blocking content which isn't sympathetic to their position, or pages which openly criticise or oppose them?

And this ridiculous claim that kids must be protected - the RC material targeted by this filter isn't the kind of stuff kids would ever stumble upon by accident - since when do kids look at kiddie porn? Or any other kind of porn, violent or otherwise? Or instructions on how to commit crimes? What kind of obscene and frankly moronic policy assumes that children are routinely exposed to extreme adult content - it is just a ploy, a fear campaign which uses emotive hypotheticals to support a prudish, Christian, patriarchal, agenda.

Commenter

Emmerage

Location

Glebe

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:04PM

stephenv999 -- I don't doubt it! Today is a sad day for Australia's democracy.

Commenter

Triple M

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:04PM

I agree with Conroy but he hasnt gone far enough. He should introduce a test whereby only people of good character are allowed to conect to the internet in the first place.

Commenter

Davros

Location

Hornsby

Date and time

December 15, 2009, 4:04PM

I've been a Labor voter all my adult life, but next election I'm going to grit my teeth and vote Liberal. I'm sick of their interfering nanny-state crap. Even Howard, stuck in the 1950s as he was, was less censorious than our current Labor government.

The Australian public overwhelmingly hates this proposal. Ditch it, or we'll ditch you.